The factors that determine and influence a country's industrial structure are extremely complicated, so are the factors that determine and influence the changes of information industry structure.
According to the theory of industrial economics, there are four kinds of factors that affect the industrial structure:
The first category is demand structure. It mainly includes the ratio between intermediate demand and final demand, personal consumption structure, the ratio between consumption and investment, and investment structure.
The second category is the supply structure. It mainly includes the ownership of labor and capital and their relative prices, production technology system and natural resources.
The third category is international trade. Namely, the trade structure.
The fourth category is the national social structure.
The structure of information industry is constantly evolving and changing, and its changes are also restricted and influenced by internal structural factors and external environmental conditions. It can be said that all social and economic factors, even natural factors, directly or indirectly affect the information industry structure, promoting or inhibiting the development and changes of the information industry structure.
All the above factors basically have an important influence on the change of information industry structure. We believe that besides the consumption structure, trade structure and social structure, there are other factors that affect the structural changes of the information industry. Below, let's talk about the influence of these factors on the structural changes of the information industry.
(A) the impact of consumption structure on the information industry structure
1, the influence of demand structure on information industry
Fundamentally speaking, human production activities, whether material or spiritual, are to meet various social needs. It can be said that the demand structure is the key factor to determine the industrial structure. Therefore, the demand structure is the most direct factor among the factors that affect the structural changes of the information industry.
By demand structure, we mean the demand of society for information products and services of the information industry, not the demand of the information industry for the output of other industries.
Because, we study the structure of information industry in order to make the composition or distribution of various types of information industry reasonable and establish the rationality standard of information industry structure. Obviously, "the industrial structure that can meet the social information needs is the most reasonable structure" is the best standard.
The change of demand structure, that is, when people's demand for some products expands, shrinks or turns, inevitably requires the corresponding product production and supply structure to correspond with it, thus causing the change of industrial structure.
When the information demand of human society is monotonous and small, there are few industries producing information products and the number of information enterprises is very limited. With the expansion of information demand, the information industry has developed rapidly, the number of industries in the information industry has increased, and the production scale of information products has expanded.
The social demand for information includes not only the information needs of individuals, but also the information needs of groups, such as enterprises, party and government organs, scientific research institutions and so on. According to the different input-output relationship of the required information products, information demand can also be divided into intermediate demand and final demand. The proportion of intermediate demand and final demand depends on the position and proportion of information industry in the whole national economy, and also determines the proportion of departments that produce intermediate information products and departments that produce final information products.
According to the above-mentioned reasonable criteria for establishing the information industry structure, we can say that whether the intermediate and final demand of the society for information products and services in the information industry can be met is the primary index to measure the information industry structure.
(1) intermediate demand
Intermediate demand refers to the information demand with information products as the intermediate input. Specifically, the full use value of this information product itself as an intermediate input has been transferred to the demand for production materials of new products at one time.
The existence of intermediate demand will inevitably produce production departments or service departments that provide intermediate information products. In the production process of the information industry, this demand is met by the external and internal departments of the information industry.
(2) the final demand
Final demand refers to the information demand of information products as final consumption. The so-called final product refers to the product itself that can be directly used by consumers without further processing. For example, the social demand for computer equipment, various databases and consulting services is the ultimate demand.
Like intermediate demand, the existence of final demand will inevitably lead to the production department and service department that provide final information products.
The ratio between intermediate demand and final demand also determines the ratio between the department producing intermediate products and the department producing final products. The latter ratio itself is the content of the information industry structure.
Under ideal circumstances, all kinds of information industry production and service units should achieve maximum output under the guidance of demand structure. If there is still a lack of production or service units that can meet a certain demand, they should be set up as soon as possible to meet all the needs to the maximum extent. In this way, the existing industrial structure has evolved into an industrial structure adapted to the demand structure. This is the mechanism by which demand structure promotes the development of industrial structure.
2. The influence of income structure on the information industry structure.
The information products that users need are not the information products that users have to buy. Whether users can turn demand into consumption behavior depends on income.
Personal consumption includes personal material consumption and personal information consumption. Personal consumption structure changes with the change of per capita income, that is, the change of personal consumption structure depends on the level of national income.
Engel's law shows that the lower the income level, the greater the share of food expenditure in household income. With the increase of income level, the share of food expenditure decreases, while the share of clothing, culture and entertainment expenditure increases. We can see that the improvement of household income level will increase the demand of individual users for information product consumption, promote the overall development of information industry, increase the number of information industry departments and expand the scale of production and operation, and change the proportion of information industry in the national economy.
For the consumption of information products and the structure of information industry, the income level has a more specific impact. The lower the per capita income level, the more users need traditional information products and the less they need modern information products. At this time, the traditional information industry sector accounts for a large proportion in the information industry, while the modern information industry sector accounts for a small proportion; With the increase of per capita income, the consumption demand of modern information products will gradually increase, and the proportion of modern information industry departments in the information industry will gradually increase.
From another perspective, when the per capita income level reaches a high level, people's requirements for spiritual life, quality of life and living environment are greatly improved, and the demand for information consumption is rising rapidly. From the change of per capita consumption structure of urban households in China from 1985 to 1995, it can be seen that the growth rate of information consumption is much faster than that of material consumption (as shown in the following table). This change of consumption structure will inevitably lead to the change of final demand, and the change of final demand will also lead to the change of departments that provide final information products, which will directly lead to the change and development of China's information industry structure.
Similarly, the information consumption demand of group information users will also change with the change of income level. When the income level is low, enterprises attach great importance to the distribution of hard factors of productivity, but ignore the distribution of soft factors of productivity, and are unable to buy information products or modern information products. When the income of enterprises increases to a certain extent and the hard factors of productivity reach a certain level and scale, the demand for information products will inevitably increase, and the proportion of demand for modern information products will gradually increase. It can be seen that the change of the income level of group information users will also affect the change of the information industry structure.
(B) the impact of trade structure on the information industry structure
Trade structure mainly refers to the proportion of domestic trade and foreign trade, which is generally measured by trade dependence.
Trade dependence refers to the proportion of the total import and export of goods to the gross national product, which shows that the dependence of national economic development on international trade can be divided into import dependence and export dependence. Whether it is import dependence or export dependence, the higher the trade dependence, the greater the influence of trade structure on industrial formation and structural change.
The influence of trade structure on the structure of information industry is mainly manifested in three aspects:
(1) Change the technical structure of the information industry through technology import and export, and then improve the product structure of the information industry.
(2) By introducing some information products, some domestic information needs can be met. For some information products that are in great domestic demand and difficult to produce at home for the time being, production can be suspended, and the development of the information industry should focus on other information industry sectors, so as to meet the needs of users for these products through introduction.
(3) Improve the information industry structure by exporting information products. Without foreign trade, it is impossible to develop the production and operation industries of information products that have no domestic market but are in great demand abroad. If we can make full use of foreign trade channels to sell information products without domestic market in the international market, we can break through the restrictions of domestic information product consumption and adjust the information industry structure according to the international market demand and consumption level.
(C) the impact of social structure on the information industry structure
Because the information industry structure itself is a part of the social and economic structure, it will naturally be influenced and restricted by other social structures. Social structure covers a wide range, including population structure, cultural structure, class structure, family structure, community structure, urban and rural structure, group structure, ethnic structure and so on. Information industry is formed and developed under certain social background and conditions, and its structure is bound to be restricted and influenced by many factors of social structure.
(D) the impact of other factors on the information industry structure
1, national economic situation 2, information resource conditions 3, scientific and technological development level 4, national economic policy